


Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

by mcgarrygirl78



Series: Thicker than Water [5]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Friendship, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-10
Updated: 2014-10-10
Packaged: 2018-02-20 14:24:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2432042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcgarrygirl78/pseuds/mcgarrygirl78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was dad Jason, big brother Jason, student Jason, friend Jason, part-time job Jason, and the mysterious Jason who desired Emily Prentiss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> This story is told in the **Thicker than Water** universe, where members of the BAU are preteens and teenagers. I hate to use the category UST when dealing with teenagers, but this doesn’t quite reach romance.

He couldn’t sleep so he just watched her instead. He wanted to climb up on the bed with her but that was a violation of her space. If he scared her, Jason would never forgive himself. The rollaway bed was not the height of comfort but little Spencer never complained once. Jason knew after his second night on it that he would be buying a new mattress as soon as he could.

With a sigh he thought about Hotch and Morgan on the sofa bed…it had to be worse. His bed had its lumps and its soft spots but Emily seemed to love it. Of course she had been sleeping on an air mattress since the summer so it may as well been a luxury hotel suite. She was quite beautiful when she slept. Her raven hair fell over one cheek. Emily slept with one hand under her head and sometimes she made little noises.

She wasn’t a tosser-turner like Penelope and JJ were. Elle never slept with her back to the door; she kept mace under her pillow. Morgan was a scratcher and sometimes a moaner. Hotch was an insomniac who would pretend he was asleep for hours before actually being that way. Spencer frequently woke in the middle of the night and had no idea why. But Emily just slept.

At least the two days she’d been in Jason’s room there had been no nightmares or insomnia. He wasn’t sleeping too well but she seemed to be doing just fine. The pills she took for the pain might have something to do with it. Since she went out to the stoop at least once a week, and told him that’s where she went when she couldn’t sleep, Emily was not immune to the sleep issues that plagued the whole family. Jason wondered what kept her up at night but was afraid to ask.

He didn’t want to know about her nightmares. He cared for her so deeply and it hurt that he couldn’t protect her from those hurtful things. He couldn’t protect any of them in their dreams. But the little ones weren't afraid to climb in bed with him on the nights it got too bad. Even JJ had done it once or twice.

Emily kept her pain to herself. Jason knew she and Hotch were definitely talking more. Maybe she told him what was on her mind. Morgan was her running buddy and they had both been abuse victims. Morgan didn’t share that with anyone but he seemed to trust and care for Emily. Not like he did the little ones, but like a sibling just the same.

The two of them shared some kind of bond. Jason was just glad she didn’t have to hold all of her pain inside. He refused to be jealous because he wasn’t the one who comforted her. For all he knew the things he thought in his head were way off. That wasn’t usually the case but Emily had never been easy to read.

He watched Emily grimace in her sleep. Her eyes slowly opened and she took in her surroundings. Jason was too deep in his own thoughts; he didn’t have time to pretend to be asleep before she looked at him. He didn’t know why but the room seemed even more silent. He and Emily just looked at each other in the near darkness. The alarm clock beside her head said 1:32am.

“Hi.” She said in a sleepy voice.

“Are you alright?” Jason sat up on the rollaway bed. “Did you have a nightmare? Are you in pain?”

“I'm fine.” She went to stretch a little, grimacing again. “OK, note to self…stretching is bad. I think I just moved wrong in my sleep; a little pain woke me.”

“You didn’t move at all.” Jason replied.

“How do you know that?”

“Um…I was watching you.”

“I remember moving.” Emily said.

“Perhaps you did it in your dreams.”

“You mean metaphysical pain in the physical world? Do you believe in the possibility of that?”

Jason shrugged. He had no idea what he believed in at this hour. He wasn’t really expecting to be having a conversation, even a stimulating philosophical one. Leave it to Emily to go there. It was one of the many reasons he was crazy about her. How adorable she was in pajamas didn’t hurt either.

“You should go back to sleep, Emily. Rest will make you heal faster and better.”

“Why are you still awake?” She asked.

“I'm listening.” Jason said.

“What are you listening to?”

“The house; I always listen to the house at this hour. I just want to make sure everything is alright.”

“You are…”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Emily shook her head. “Come up here; I know the rollaway bed sucks.”

“Spencer handles it OK. I'm fine.” Jason replied.

“I noticed today that your back was bugging you and your legs too. You need to get some sleep, Jason, you deserve it. Don’t worry, ravaging your body is a thought but I can barely move. C'mon, we can make a pillow fort if you're that concerned.”

“What's a pillow fort?” Jason asked. He wanted to get into that bed so bad he was tingling. The crazy thing was that it had very little to do with Emily. He just wanted to be comfortable.

“We would stick two or three pillows between us so that our bodies don’t touch. Hotch and Morgan do it on the sofa bed so they can sleep without having to kill each other. See, sometimes boys are smart.”

Jason smirked. He got up from the rollaway bed and climbed into his own. They didn’t need a pillow fort but he was still going to maintain a healthy distance. It was late; the only thing that needed to be on either one of their minds was sleep.

“I have to admit this wasn’t the way I was looking to get days off school.” She said.

“I thought you liked school.”

“Who likes school?”

“I like school. Hotch likes school. Spencer likes school.” Jason replied.

“I adore all three of you, but you're nerds.”

“You think I'm a nerd?”

Emily laughed and then grimaced. She had only been out of the hospital for two days. They wanted to keep her longer than three days but she was making life increasingly difficult for the nursing staff. They were concerned but happy when Dave came to check her out. The doctor said she needed to be out of school for an additional week to recover fully from the operation.

Jason would stay out the first three days to look after her. She needed help getting in and out of bed. She needed her meals served to her. He didn’t like the idea of leaving her alone. He refused to do it.

School was important, Jason always believed that, but taking care of family took precedence. Erin wasn’t too happy about him missing time. He assured her that all of his work would be made up. Hotch would be bringing homework home for both Jason and Emily.

“I don’t think it, Jason, I know it.” She smiled. “But you know what?”

“What?”

“I love you so it doesn’t matter. I'm always gonna love you, nerd or not. If you hadn't noticed, I'm a nerd too.”

Jason was a little too stunned to speak. Emily just said ‘I love you’ and he wasn’t sure just what she meant by that. He’d only known her since June, but that didn’t really matter. Almost from that first weekend Emily was a member of their family.

It wasn’t until their first kiss before Independence Day that Jason knew his feelings were something else. He’d spent the past three months juggling so many feelings. There were days when he felt as if he had multiple personalities. There was dad Jason, big brother Jason, student Jason, friend Jason, part-time job Jason, and the mysterious Jason who desired Emily Prentiss.

That Jason was dark and intense…he scared all the other Jasons. Lying beside her in bed right now, friend Jason was fighting him and didn’t know who was going to win. If he ever did anything to hurt Emily or make her uncomfortable then he would never forgive himself. And she was ill right now. That would make it even more reprehensible.

“The last time I checked, nerds do not look like you.” He replied.

“Don’t believe the hype, Jason Gideon.”

“I'm not sure I even know what that means.”

Emily smiled. She reached out her hand and Jason’s met hers halfway. He let out a little gasp when her fingers laced with his. Almost without his consent, he held her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles.

“I love you too, Katya.” He exhaled. “I was scared to death when you didn’t come home from the library on time. Then when Dave called I just about lost my mind. When I thought something happened to you...” he couldn’t finish that thought.

“I'm gonna be fine.” Emily replied. “Appendix free but just fine. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“So I should go to school tomorrow?” Jason wasn’t sure if he sounded sarcastic, which was what he was going for, or mean. He was really bad at this.

“Oh no, no, no. I said you didn’t have to worry about me. I didn’t say I wasn’t enjoying your attention.”

“Well, note to self Emily Prentiss…you don’t have to be sick to get it.”

“Promises, promises.”

They smiled at each other and Jason kissed her hand again. Just as suddenly he let her hand go, the smile fading from his face.

“Its late, and you need to go to sleep.” He said. “You won't heal properly if you don’t rest. Are you comfortable? Do you need more pillows or something?”

“No, I'm fine. Sometimes I just have trouble sleeping at night. When I woke up last night you were asleep.”

“I don’t know how…” Jason smirked. “That rollaway bed really sucks.”

“Then stay up here with me.”

He nodded but didn’t say anything else. Emily closed her eyes again, she was tired. She knew she needed to rest and get better. While sleeping in the big bed beat the air mattress by a mile, Emily was not a fan of bed rest. She liked to be free; had come a long way to be just that. Now she was stuck recovering from appendicitis. And while having Jason’s attention was awesome what came along with it wasn’t very.

“Sweet dreams, Jason.” Emily whispered as sleep came to take her again.

“Goodnight Katya.”

***

  



End file.
